Truth and Courage
by SamNny
Summary: Sometimes it took a lot of courage to tell the truth. It took even more to admit it to yourself. And the sadistically realistic moment when you realize that certain events would have unfolded just the same is what makes lying so much more appealing.


If for nothing but the sake of putting things into perspective, what did he have to offer? Supposing he hadn't let himself get flung into the atrocious madness of their last date, would the outcome (in the grand scheme of things) been any different? Even without repulsive and horrendous (though lacking heaps of his former creativity) figures that only existed in the minds of those swallowed by him and himself, would he not still have dreamed of her blood dripping from his blade? Let's just be honest here: the most frightfully romantic evenings could never exist in his world without a little bloodshed.

But it's all about the perspective. He needed to stop trying to look at past events from her point of view and digest the fact that he was going to lose her no matter what he did or didn't do. He needed to forget about the snap - the moment where he walked away and slammed the door behind him - and think about the consequences of his almost actions. If he had let her come any closer, let her hand rest gently atop of his, what kind of chaos that could have caused. If he had let her close the space between them and press her lips to his, what kind of destruction could he have unleashed then?

Thinking logically, he knew there were only a few possibilities, none of them being exceptionally pleasant. He mused over the fact that he could have simply responded to her intimacy with the timid and mangled picture he had of a truly sincere first kiss. He had no practice in holding another, his hands had never done anything other than tear and rip, his lips never before been met with something other than a fist or bat full of hatred, and, well... everything else was far less experienced than that. Yet, he could have _tried_. He was sure that aside from a chuckle, she'd understand his clumsy reciprocation of her feelings and smile at him.

But that wasn't even remotely possible.

Johnny had always been a man that rejected and was repulsed by touch. Human contact, or any contact at all, really, fueled him with disgust and rage. It was so violating, the physical action, and thought that someone else believed they had the right to lay hands on him. Even if it was tender, or gentle, he loathed it. They never asked his permission, bothered to consider his feelings on the matter, and they probably hadn't washed their hands. Vile, wretched beings. Too busy to cleanse themselves and offer the courtesy of simple permission.

His tolerance changed, of course, upon meeting certain people. Little Squeegee from next door was an exception. He was kind, polite, and genuine - something lacking in the rest of the population. His cause was only helped when he appeared to also not want to be touched by the tall, lanky fellow with the broken smile. They had a mutual understanding, a silent communication of distress, and Johnny liked that about the little fellow. With that being established, he concluded that if Squee were to accidentally bump into him on the street, he would not be prone to lash out and dismember the poor boy. He would let it pass instead.

But _Devi_- Devi was a complicated matter. Being a woman of his fancy, the receiver of his affections, she commanded a whole new batch of sensations to arise from him. Small and petty instances were acceptable from his neighbor friend, but this woman, this creature, would _need _and _want _something more from him. The idea both terrified and delighted him. She was his ticket - his one chance - at a normal relationship. And the tantalizing idea of touching her made him want to both vomit and rejoice.

She was a perfectly imperfect person in his eyes. The idea of perfection left a bad taste in his mouth, so the fact that she didn't even try to ascertain a status like that made him all the more fond of her. He could spend hours listing off all of the things he'd liked about her. There was her pretty smile, thin and stretched out frame that mimicked his (but she had breasts), take-no-shit attitude, unique sense of style, and ownership of herself. She was a killer woman with one Hell of a welcoming personality.

But he was more amazed by her ability to accept him. She was unafraid to point out his painfully obvious flaws, yet she still embraced them. They were a part of him, they had a hand in defining him, and they were a constant reminder that he was still human (whether he liked it or not). She didn't care that he wasn't some six foot tall, buff, and super rich guy. In fact, that was the opposite of her "type." He was average in height, severely underweight, dressed like he was straight out of some Gothic-teen shop, and very creepy in appearance.

He wasn't exactly desirable, to put it lightly. He looked like a poser, only he wasn't one, and his starved and skeleton-like body was working against him. But when he asked her why she had taken a chance on him, she made it sound like it was obvious. "Because you're real," she had said, not realizing how accurate her own statement was, "and you're the first guy I've ever met who seemed normal."

That whole explanation had caught him off guard. Normal? The fuck was that supposed to mean? Sure, she didn't know it yet, but he was criminally insane! Aside from his physical lack thereof a body, he was absolutely abnormal. He wore heavy, _pointed _steel-toed boots, a wardrobe of only black and white (mostly black), trench coats that were way out of style, and he somehow imprinted his God-awful and atrocious stick-figure creation on half of his shirts. And that was just the beginning. He could search the depths of his mind and still only be able to pull out a tenth of what he could list off in a twenty-four hour period. He was just that fucked up.

But she had only laughed at him, saying that "normal" was a term she used loosely. She hadn't meant it as everyone else had described it. He was normal because he wasn't some sex-crazed, vampire-wanna be, cannibalistic airhead. He didn't allow himself to focus so much on good impressions that he would later run around screaming and shitting himself all over the floor. No, he was so far different than any other man she'd dated that he actually appeared to be a good, decent person. Too bad she was so horribly wrong. She also spoke too soon.

He should have told her after their first date that he was broken. That he was so far from normal that he couldn't be touched with a ten-foot pole. That he was so deranged and maddened that the police didn't even bother with him. He practically had free range of the city. But he was _so _attracted to her that saying things like that would have messed everything up. Not like that didn't happen anyway, but still... he wanted a chance. No, he _needed_ one. He blew it, but... it was absolutely necessary.

So, with that being said, here are his twisted scenarios: he could have returned her kiss, finding that her lips on his was as addictive as he had heard it described, and he would have forced her back onto his couch to prevent her from pulling away. Rest assured, he would not have let things escalate beyond that (no clothes would have gone flying, that is), but it would have automatically proven her not sex-crazed theory wrong. In her eyes, anyway.

Scenario two: he would have rejected her with every fiber of his being, finding that just because he held strong feelings for her, did not warrant her close proximity and potential exchange of saliva. Her touch could have been as dreadful as he had imagined and she would have been hurt and left him. He would never want that, even if he couldn't stand her hands on him. But how could one explain the violent push and panic as something they had no taste for and then claim to still want to stay in a relationship? That didn't tend to work out unless one was asexual (he had every reason to believe that he was, but he couldn't speak for her).

Scenario three: he could have kissed her back, ended their date, dropped her off at home, and done something else stupid and mortifying later to earn the same ending.

And that's what would have happened.

However, he had a peaked curiosity that led him to wonder past all that. If he could assume that he would have responded appropriately, and they could have stayed together, he had to ask himself what he would do then. He had to be realistic. Even if he was sane, what did he really have to offer her? Or anyone, for that matter? He had no job, no money coming in, an unstable roof over his head, a rust-bucket car, and a now lost-in-space talent for drawing. What kind of life could he have provided?

But she forced herself to assimilate with the shit-bags of society. She was pulled together, completely intact (as far as he was concerned). She was extremely talented, had a job, made enough money to continually pay rent at her apartment, and she ate real food on a regular basis. He couldn't ask her to support him, nor would she, and he doubted he could compose himself this late in life to actually become something better than absolutely useless.

So, he supposed, the moral of the story was that he was never destined for a happy ending with someone. There were so many reasons as to why, but the worst one was himself. He would always be a hindrance to his own emotions (the ones he wanted to rid himself of), always stifle and resist his desire to grow and obtain freedom. Devi was a tease, a sick pawn placed by either God or the Devil, they both loved to torment his weary soul. She was so explicitly placed in his life for just long enough to make him believe he could actually have her, and then he allowed himself to be swayed, and she was ripped away from him.

In other words: he was in a vicious cycle of screwing himself. And she would always be someone else's caged butterfly.

* * *

"A/N: I've taken way too much time off from writing Rumors of My Demise, but I couldn't help it. I need to seriously go back and rewrite it before I continue, it's so awful. But I wanted to write this to make sure I still had what it took to write for this fandom and I'm counting on reviews to let me know if I still do. So please, let me know what you thought, praise/flames/criticism is all welcome."


End file.
